High-speed Gunboats To Fight Drug Traffickers

August 5, 1999

PUERTO LEGUIZAMO, Colombia - Colombia launched a new elite navy unit Wednesday that will use high-speed gunboats to fight drug traffickers and Marxist guerrillas along the country's extensive river networks. President Andres Pastrana and Gen. Charles Wilhelm, head of the U.S. Army's Southern Command, attended a ceremony to inaugurate the unit in this jungle town on a tributary of the Amazon, near the border with Ecuador. The brigade comes into service at a time when U.S. figures show cocaine production in Colombia has doubled in the past four years.